Guest Post: Variation ...by Pat Walsh

 ** Variation **

A Principle of training to look at this week and maybe see how it fits into your weekly and overall  plan. 

An athletes’ training program needs to be specific, BUT it also needs to include variety of each technique, energy system, and workout. 

One definition of insanity is:-“Doing the same thing all the time and expect different results”

Why MIX IT UP? 

It helps to maintain interest in the plan and to prevent boredom. The same 4 miles on the same route at the same pace a few times a week will eventually plateau and you will stagnate.

It can prepare athletes for possible events, changes, and situations in a race. For example, if an individual always trains alone, they may find it hard running in a crowd of athletes. If you always train on the flat, what happens when there is a hill in a race?

It can prevent injury by allowing the body to adapt to a more diverse range of movements, workouts, intensities, and terrains. 

Run different places, different lengths, throw in a few hills. Don’t neglect speed work. The Easy run should be easy. 

It helps with weight loss as the body can get used to the same training week in – week out and becomes efficient at hoarding energy (another word for holding onto weight)

Allows for adaptation, e.g. following hard sessions with easy sessions and hard weeks with an easy week to allow the cycle of regeneration and ultimately progression to occur.

Try varying: 

Direction and length of movements.  Put a few “long strides” and “skip to the side” into the start and end of a speed session.

Length of intervals. Vary the distances of intervals between 400, 800, 1Km and a mile. Each has its strong points and all are useful

Speed of movements.  Slow pace, fast pace, slow pace on longer runs.

Change the route for long runs and include some hills from time to time.

Periods of hard weeks and easy week.  3 hard weeks and  1 easy week gives a nice 4 week cycle and allow recovery to move on again

Racing / Training. Too much racing stops a training plan for improvement. Too much training and no racing and it is hard to know are you getting better or not.

Bicycle. Instead of a 4 mile recovery after a long run maybe try an easy cycle for an hour.

Somewhere different. Run a race you have never ran before

And the MOST IMPORTANT one. Your attitude. Be open and welcome change and don’t stay stuck in a rut.

Have a lovely weekend. Friend got a new bike so we had to go somewhere nice to try it out.

#pwr #keep on running